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GenCon is a bit more than a month away, and riding on the coattails is the Vintage Championships. Earlier this year I promised that I’d not only be preparing myself for the voyage, but you as well. I’m here to make good on that promise. I’d like to discuss a few decks, some you’ll see, and a few you’d like to play, but nearly all of them I consider to be T1 worthy.

While I can’t promise to dive into the murky waters of all the decks, I can water-ski over the important parts; I’ll try to make sure I have a match-up analysis of all the major archetypes with deck lists that I would play. The lists may not appeal to your own tastes, and that’s good, so don’t be bothered if you feel the need to swap card slots around.

ge, one card I believe everyone should be aware of is Mind’s Desire. It is my belief that Combo will be very strong during the month of July in some form or the other with Gro-A-Tog dying out due to Gush

’s recent restriction. (Of course Wizards already saw this happening as they have restricted Desire already—something to do with Chapin being hired? I don’t know)

The first list I’m giving you is a new twist on an old deck. The Academy was once said to be the only deck worth playing in Type 1: “If the idea of Type I is to play with broken cards, then there is no other deck that plays with as many broken cards as The Academy.” This sentiment is true if you’re from the school of thought that a truly good combo player should win all the time if s/he plays the deck right. With this teaching, The Academy truly houses the most broken cards in the game—more so with the inclusion of Mind’s Desire. From the school of Chapin: The Academy tells every other deck in the field, “If you aren’t playing with 4 Force of Will

, then you lose.” It was with this train of thought that he deemed Gro to be the best deck in the field, as it beat The Academy reliably. The Academy; therefore, forces one to believe that with an aggro deck they may not see another turn. While it’s true that combo generally houses anything that isn’t control, I’ll let you decide on your own accord how much of Chapin’s teachings you believe to be true. The debate is too long for this article.

. Before I touch some of the finer points let’s get into the main deck first.

So far the mana base has been working fine for me. Ultimately you want to get to about four land and then quit. Drawing land in a combo deck is bothersome, especially when you are playing with tons of artifacts that give you mana (these also fuel the Tolarian Academy

. Sure, if you’ve seen the deck you’d say to yourself, ‘well I’ll just counter the Wish and his deck is done’ and you may be right…if you can counter the Wish. The smart combo player will know how to play the deck, and that means he’ll go off when he’s ready. Remember, it’s not turbo-artifact deck, it’s combo—play it as such. Imagine that you’re setting up an Upheaval

or constant mana destruction hits the table. Ultimately the battle against aggro will generally be won in the trenches of mana denial—as this is their main weapon against combo—combined with aggressive creatures of course. That is problematic. The benefit of playing Academy is that you need little land to cast your Draw seven cards and then go off. The disadvantage is that Draw sevens are for everybody and you may not get an optimal hand off your Wheel of Fortune

is enemy #1 and should probably be addressed further in the sideboard.

The other cards are a skeleton of former Academy builds, although there are a few choices not seen before. The deck is really the epitome of “Top-decking TI”; at any time the card you draw is going to be a bomb. One card creates a new definition to top-decking: Future Sight

The idea of the deck? Well, with Desire being darn near unstoppable (due to the storm effect) it’s not unreasonable to rack off about 7-10 extra spells from one Desire. Also don’t dismiss the fact that you have tons of shufflers and will probably Desire twice in one turn if you opponent hasn’t already conceded. The main kill is in the Tendrils of Agony

can throw a wrench into your plans as well. They are playing the disruption game in this case, so you’ll have to race them. Try to counter anything that hurts your mana, and getting too cocky with Fastbond

, as racing these are pretty easy. Save your counters for Kegs game one, Rod games two and three.

IN : NothingOUT: Nothing

MASKNAUGHT

Playing against this deck is good news for you. This is basically another combo deck, but the trick is that your combo is faster. Most of the ‘good’ Mask decks will be Blue/Black, so don’t get to comfortable, be mindful of the counter and be prepared for a smidgeon of hand disruption. You could possible side in REB, but unless they’re running more counter magic than normal, I wouldn’t be worried—although you may want to watch out for the errant Recoil

This is one of the more aggro of the control decks on the block. I think as before, the only cards you really must worry about are the hand/land disruption. An active void, if play when you have nothing on the board, means that all your cheap artifacts now cost three…which is annoying. I would board the same as against any aggro deck…zilch.

IN : NothingOUT: Nothing

PARFAIT

Parfait may have a minor bit of hate against your deck in the form of artifact disruption, but generally this should be an easier match than any of the others. Really not to much to worry about as long as you play your cards right. Expect either a win or a draw at worst.

IN : NothingOUT: Nothing

KEEPER

This is the first of the decks that your sideboard will really help against. If the Keeper player can manage to grab the tempo of the late game with Cunning Wish

. Tread carefully when dealing with this deck; it is one of the better decks in the format right now. My advice, win game one and hope that you can force a game three or draw.

IN : see KeeperOUT: see Keeper

MONO-U and URPHIDIAN

This deck is dead, why bother with it? Well some joker will probably show up with it. If you face this deck play around their counter magic in game one. Game two you might have to be prepared for Hurkyl’s recall. As I said already, I don’t expect many people to be playing with this deck. (cry)

The mirror match—the one that you had better expect to see. Mirror matches of these decks often come down to who has the Academy in play first, or who is the better player in the waiting game. One thing to remember is that you’re both running draw sevens, so an opening hand of only the Academy my not be that bad. With so many different versions of Academy, it’s hard to tell you how to prepare.

or an Illusions. Try to counter it if you can. The trick is to combo before they can, which should be easy to do if you can avoid their hand disruption. In this case I would be weary of Rector, or surprise them by putting their life gain on the stack and using your REB to kill them outright.

The way I see it this deck is an upgrade over the Academy decks of old. I’d like to see this deck do well, but I believe it can only do as well as the person piloting it.

Obviously the deck is not unbeatable; it has some cards that can chicken wing it if they resolve. The trick to test the deck, and address those holes via the sideboard. Then you might have a shot with this deck come the end of July.

Here’s the first in the series, and it won’t be the last. Send me a line if you have any ideas on the deck, as I’m going to be working on another installment of Defeating the Metagame: The Road to Vintage Championships.

Viva,

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